A Wing and a Prayer
by Doll Nabokov
Summary: The girls are reassigned to Vash the Stampede after Augusta. But when an unexpected tragedy forces Meryl into hiding, her search for the outlaw becomes more than a job: it becomes a necessity. VM


A/N: This story takes place after Meryl and Milly are reassigned to Vash's case; it's a sort of alternate meeting for Vash and Meryl, because I thought the one in the anime was unsatisfactory. Then I figured, 'hell, why not just make it into a story?' So this is a small storyline of unrecorded mishaps that occurred before the series became depressing. It started out as just a dialogue exercise, so let me know what you think of it. I'm trying to stay away from too much angst and sorrow, though those _will _be minor components to the plot. I _do_ promise WAFF-iness, humor, some romance, and plenty of action, adventure, mystery, and suspense.

Disclaimer: Okay, OKAY, I don't own Trigun.But I _do _have a plush Vash doll, if that counts for anything.

* * *

Dark, velvet twilight settled outside the mesquite saloon-style doors of the bar at June City, the sweep of the horizon dappled with stars. Gunsmoke's five moons had just crested the dunes, strangely exotic and magnolia-hued in the quickly-fading sunlight. Caught between the suns in East and the moonlight in the West, the normally gold sands were blanched snow-white; especially pale against the darkening backdrop of the sky.

The silence and the stillness of the Gunsmoke landscape were in perfect disparity to the chatter, chortles, and clatters that issued from the bar. Plywood tables, Formica counters, red barstools, folding chairs: all teeming with frothy beers in oversize tin mugs, card decks and dishrags. The stuccoed, sand-streaked walls and checked floors were cast in a heartening amber light.

Folded into a chair in the northeast corner of the charming room, Vash the Stampede blew air through his cheeks and stared hard at his hand: a seven and a five.

"Hit me."

"Happy to oblige." Nicholas D. Wolfwood muttered sarcastically around his crooked cigarette, raising a threatening hand.

"Not you," Vash amended quickly, scooting his chair away from the wayward priest. "The dealer."

The dealer licked his thumb and tossed a card to Vash. Vash peeled the card off the gateleg table, turned it over.

"A ten!" he whined. "That's the twelfth time I've lost! I don't even think I have enough to pay my tab." He stole a meaningful look at Wolfwood.

"What?" Wolfwood asked defensively, intercepting Vash's stare. "You think I'm gonna foot your bill for you? Forget it. I have an orphanage to feed, remember?"

"I'm sure your _pint_ of beer will be considered a deductible," Vash said wryly.

The priest swilled the liquor in his stein and flashed a devilish grin. "'Man cannot live on bread alone'."

Vash fetched a deep sigh and slapped another five double dollars on the lacquered tabletop. "One more round," he said. Deft, gloved hands snatched the money from the gunman, stuffed it into a pocket, and gathered the cards. Vash watched disinterestedly as the dealer shuffled the cards, pausing to tug the black twill hood lower over his face. The overhead lamp didn't quite reach the room's corners, and between the half-light and the heavy hood of his traveling cloak, the dealer's face was completely obscured by shadows.

Vash picked up his cards with a doleful whimper. "Hit me." The fleet hands shucked a card off the top of the deck. "Hit me." He repeated, wincing. "Hit me." He groaned loudly, thumping the cards on the table. "I busted." The gunman chewed his bottom lip for a moment. "Hey!" He said suddenly, elbowing Wolfwood in the ribs so the priest choked on his beer. " How much do you think I could get if I pawned my gun?"

Wolfwood paused in mid-sip, quirking an eyebrow at his friend. "That piece of junk?" He took a pensive pull from the beer, then added: "Pay someone fifty double dollars and they _might _be persuaded to take it."

"Isn't that how you managed to get rid of your bike?" Vash rejoined.

"Hey! Are you dissing my motorcycle again!"

"Motorcycle? That's being a little generous, don't you think?" Vash teased. "Most of the time _you _carried _it._"

"Laugh it up now, poker face," Wolfwood growled. "You'll be washing dishes to pay for your check."

"What happened to charity?" Vash groused. "'Love thy neighbor' and all that?"

"My neighbor may have the rest of my beer if he quits complaining."

"Actually," Vash said with an impish smile, "I think I'm going to turn in. We have to catch the sand-steamer to Inepril tomorrow, which means we should be up early." He stood, pushing his chair back, and weaved through tables and chairs, picking his way toward the exit.

Wolfwood stared after the gunman for a moment, then shrugged indifferently. "To each his own, I guess," he said, stubbing his cigarette out against an ashtray and moving to rise. The bartender's voice stayed him with:

"Hey, you! Mr. Priest!"

Wolfwood inclined his head. "I'm listening."

"Your buddy," the barkeep said, skirting the countertop and winding his way to Wolfwood's table, "left without paying his tab."

Wolfwood met the bartender's accusing stare with wariness. "What do you want me to do about it?"

The barkeep rubbed his thumb against his fore and middle fingers. "I want my money. And I don't care _who _pays." He raised his eyebrows in a silent question: _understand?_

Wolfwood pressed his lips together, stared at the man for a beat. Then he exhaled loudly, and began patting down his pockets for his wallet. "That damn needle-noggin…"

* * *

It was nights like this when Vash remembered why he loved Gunsmoke: when the coronas were bright enough to fringe steel gray clouds with white; when the atmosphere cast the moons in hues of shell pink, champagne, and ice blue; when the simoom winds quieted long enough to feel the gentleness of the desert evening. 

The gunman paused in the dusty, halcyon streets of June City, tilting his face toward the starlight. His lips parted in childlike marvel; he raised his arm to the sky, splayed his fingers, then pointed them, derringer-like, at the moons. "Bang," he whispered.

"Bang," a voice agreed aloud.

Vash dropped his arm, feeling foolish. "I'm sorry," he said with a laugh. "I didn't know anyone was out there." He frowned at the phantasmagoric shadows to his left, just able to discern the outline of a man: black against black.

A match flared with a _ksh, _diluting the shadows and painting a man's face with tones of orange and pillar-box red: a leathery, sunburned face with flint-colored eyes and a curious, hardened smile. "No?" He asked. The man cupped the flame to his face, causing the darkness to caper and frisk around him. "The better for me." He waved the match out, then paused, dragging on the cigarette.

"Excuse me?" Vash asked skeptically.

The metallic click of a hammer being set resounded off of empty brasseries, grocery stores, and two-story building complexes, and Vash felt his blood run cold. "I've been watching you"---the man took a pull off the roll-up, exhaling his words in a cloud of smoke---"Vash the Stampede." He stepped forward, a large, silver pistol in his hand, bleached white in the moonlight. "Now, let's have all our cards on the table, huh? Give me your gun."

Vash stared at him evenly for amoment, then unfastened his holster.

"Slowly!" The man barked.

Vash eased his firearm from its holster and offered it, butt-first, to the bounty hunter. The man snatched the pistol away, readjusting his grip on the stock with a sweat-slick hand. "Now," he said, gesturing with Vash's gun. "Back up. Back, back, back…all right, stop." He took another step forward, speaking slowly. "And keep your hands out of your pockets, too."

"Don't tell me you're after the sixty million double dollars?" Vash grumbled.

The bounty hunter made a half-shrug, careful to keep one pistol trained on the outlaw. "It's a nice figure."

"Worth killing a man?"

"That's your decision. The wanted poster said: 'dead or alive'," the man pointed out. "Frankly, I don't want to shoot you." He inhaled deeply from the cigarette, then smiled cruelly. "Waste of a bullet."

"I'd rather not go to jail," Vash said lightly. "Sorry to disappoint."

Another step forward, another shrug. "It's your funeral. Be the best bullet I ever spent." He bit down on the cigarette, his finger tightening on the trigger. "So long, Vash the Stampede."

A shot exploded, shattering the tranquility of the night like a skipping-stone shatters the tranquility of still waters. The brassy _ping_ of metal striking metal tailed the gunfire; Vash instinctively dropped into a roll, sprinting away from the bounty hunter without a backwards glance. He was lucky---at such close range, the bullet should have at least grazed him.

Vash skidded to a halt a few yards away, stirring up a cloud of sun-baked dirt, which clung to his ankles. The bullet _should _have grazed him. _The trajectory of the gun; the sound of metal against metal: none of it made sense. _

Another gunshot fired, its staccato report coupling with the echo of the first shot in an eerie duet. Vash spun around with a sudden realization: _the bounty hunter hadn't fired the shots._

"Alright!" Vash recognized the bounty hunter's husky voice. "Stop shooting! I'm disarmed."

A small figure melted from the shadows, twin pistols grasped tightly in hand, pearly smoke coiling from their barrels. Vash descried a familiar black twill traveling cloak: the card dealer from the bar.

The card dealer spoke for the first time, and for Vash it was as though the world was knocked three degrees off its axis:

"Why is it you're always in trouble when we meet, Vash the Stampede?" The dealer unfastened the cloak and shrugged out of it, draping it over one slender arm.

The street lights haloed the dealer's boyish figure in gold and backlit her hair, done in a timeless pageboy. Her long, black eyelashes cast crisscrossed shadows over her cheekbones in the dim light., breathtakingly dark against the ivory of her skin. The dancing silver eyes; the full lips with that gentle smiling curve that was somehow cynical and flirtatious at the same time; the elegant line of her jaw:

"Insurance girl?" He asked disbelievingly. "What are you doing here?"

"Is this the gratitude I get for saving your life?" Meryl asked with indignation.

"I thought you were in December," he said accusingly.

"Vash the Stampede resurfaced in New Oregon," She replied coolly, dropping the spent derringers on the ground and pulling out a fresh pair. "Milly and I were the only ones qualified."

"Milly and you…" he trailed off, narrowing his eyes. "Wait a minute---does this mean you're going to be stalking me again?"

"_Stalking_ you?" Meryl repeated incredulously. "It's called _surveillance, _idiot!"

"I thought I'd gotten rid of you."

"Keep talking, buster," Meryl said through gritted teeth, aiming her pistol at his head. "I can think of a real good way to ensure that Vash the Stampede doesn't cost Bernardelli another dime in liability insurance."

"I thought you were trying to _save _my life," Vash quipped.

Meryl snorted. "Don't flatter yourself. I was merely taking intervention measures to preclude disaster."

Vash glanced around with sudden curiosity. "Where's Milly? I thought bad luck came in pairs."

Meryl cut him with a look. "It does," she said in a dangerously low voice. "One,"---she cocked the pistol in her right hand---"and two," she finished, cocking the pistol in her left hand.

"Save it for the bounty hunter," Vash suggested. "He's the one trying to kill me."

Meryl arched an eyebrow. "And which one is the _outlaw _with a sixty million double dollar bounty on his head?" Before Vash could respond, she snapped out a command. "What are you waiting for? Pick up his guns."

Vash crouched down obediently, holstering his own custom revolver, then tucking the bounty hunter's piece into his waistband. He looked up, found that Meryl was staring at him quizzically.

"What?" He asked automatically.

"What happened to your coat?" She demanded.

Vash straightened up, fingering the cuff of his pressed white button-up shirt self-consciously. "It got worn out," he said simply.

Meryl rolled her eyes. "So much the better. You were a walking target in that thing."

Vash shrugged off the comment. "What are we going to do with him?" He asked, jerking a thumb at the bounty hunter.

Meryl gave the man a once-over. "Let him go?"

"Let him go?" Vash parroted incredulously.

"That's what I said."

"But he'll try to kill me!"

"We should all be so lucky," Meryl said dryly.

Vash eyed the bounty hunter distrustfully. "As long as he doesn't get his gun," he concluded.

"I paid for that!" The bounty hunter injected indignantly.

"You can pick it up at the Sheriff's tomorrow," Meryl said in a tone that did not allow negotiation. She trained her derringers on the man warningly. "Or you can try to take it from us tonight."

The bounty hunter worked his jaw in silence. "Tomorrow morning, then." He said finally. "At the Sheriff's office?"

"Good choice," Meryl said. Her glare followed the bounty hunter until he was a black pinprick rejoining the shadows of the landscape.

Vash snuck a sidelong look at the insurance girl. How long had it been since Augusta? A year? She seemed more slender and delicate than he remembered---almost birdlike. And were those black circles beneath her eyes? '_Still bitchy, though,'_ he thought silently. Thank God for small wonders.

"What are you smiling at?" Meryl snapped at him, holstering her derringers.

"I'm sorry," Vash said, trading his fresh-faced grin for an expression of mock sobriety. "I forgot that I'm not supposed to have fun when you're around." He paused to pick up her spent derringers, then handed them to her as a peace offering. "I thought for sure you'd stay in December." He said, switching tracks.

Meryl gave him a long, even stare, then refastened her cloak with a sigh. "I couldn't." She said flatly.

"Why not?" Vash queried.

Meryl was silent.

Vash's internal alarms started going off. The more he thought about it, the more suspicious the traveling cloak appeared, not to mention the way she'd tailed him secretly. "Are you in trouble?" He asked. When she didn't answer, he prompted her. "Mer--"

"Quiet!" Meryl hushed him fiercely.

Vash dropped his voice. "This is a little too 'cloak-and-dagger' for you. What's happened?"

"_This _happened," Meryl retorted, pressing a folded sheet of brown paper into his hand.

When Vash looked at her questioningly, she waved an impatient hand, urging him to open it.

Vash unfolded the paper slowly; then his blood ran cold.

The notice read:

**WANTED  
****--------------------------  
****DEAD OR ALIVE  
--------------------------  
****MERYL STRYFE  
--------------------------  
****$$50,000.00 REWARD**

**Wanted for the crime of murder**

The public is forthwith warned that the  
criminal is armed and dangerous

The notice was headlined with a black-and-white photograph of Meryl. The line "wanted for the crime of murder," hit him like a kick in the teeth. He looked up at Meryl, shock and devastation fighting for equal measures of his expression.

"Murder?" He said, so softly that the insurance girl could hardly pick out his voice between the hum of the streetlights and the noise drifting from well-lit buildings.

"Vash," Meryl said, the barest hint of exasperation flavoring her voice. "I think I'm in trouble." She upturned her face to the sky, where milky ways, stars, moons, and nearby planets spattered the heavens like paint on an abstract canvas. "I think my life is in danger."


End file.
